
Last Slice: Downtown Seattle Bids Adieu to The Cheesecake Factory
Sad News for Fans of The Cheesecake Factory in Downtown Seattle.
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The popular restaurant's Pike Street location will close its doors on May 4th. The restaurant opened in 2001. The Cheesecake Factory has four other locations in western Washington. According to the Puget Sound Business Journal:
“After extensive review and analysis, the company made the difficult decision to discontinue operation of our restaurant in downtown Seattle,” said spokesperson Alethea Rowe told PSBJ. “We have truly enjoyed being a part of the downtown Seattle community over the last 23 years and hope to continue to serve all our Seattle guests at our nearby restaurant locations.”
How The Cheesecake Factory Came to Be
In the 1940s Evelyn Overton found a cheesecake recipe in the newspaper. It was an instant hit with friends and family. So, she opened a bakery outside of Detroit. After raising her children, she and her husband Oscar relocated to Los Angeles to be near their son. In 1972, they opened The Cheesecake Factory Bakery and began selling cheesecakes to local restaurants in Los Angeles. According to the website:
Their son David decided to open a restaurant in Beverly Hills in 1978 to showcase his mother’s cakes. Somehow, he just knew that a restaurant with an extensive dessert menu would be a hit. There was a line out the door on opening day. More than forty years later, many say the line has never stopped!

The Cheesecake Factory has restaurants in Tacoma, Bellevue, Tukwila, and Lynnwood.
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